I'm sure it may boil down to a faulty unit, but damn. I'd be interested in knowing other people's experiences, so let me know if you had a similar problem before?

I've bought yesterday an upscaling DVD player / HDD recorder in hopes of replacing my El Cheapo (Textronics) DVD player which, although cool (no region), is not the best it could be. I also decided to get one with an HDD drive as they (supposedly) can play DivX movies from it.

Unfortunately after setting it up I'm struck with massive static ghosting. In other words, some type of translucent shadow appears around things, and is most noticeable with black letters over white b/g. I've taken pictures comparing it to the TV's menu and it's not just my eyes playing tricks... [note: both TV and player are Philips].

The worst thing is that this happens with the HDMI connection. I'm really amazed that this "new" technology can suffer from these types of bugs. I was expecting something close to PC quality (since HDMI is supposedly same or better than DVI), but this is really S-Video with better color [maybe Component quality, although others here have said they did not have issues].

So I went to check online, and it seems that this problem plagues many LCD monitors (not just my brand or my model).

I'm not surprised then that Blueray/HDTV is not taking off. With this kind of crap quality, extra cripsness is lost. To be honest, in motion you barely notice, so you *can* live with it. But come on... this HDMI thing was hyped up so much that I was expecting something better than S-Video on steroids. Otherwise, might as well keep using component.

There's another problem with it, but that may be the unit (or worse, the TV)... in that no sound comes through the HDMI. Now to wait to see if the warranty works...

You're not getting sound from the HDMI? Sometimes you have to configure these things manually but typically audio through HDMI should be default on your television. I've got a Phillips HDMI DVD player that upscales and it has worked properly on my Sony rear-projection HDTV and JVC LCD TV but haven't bothered with it on my Sharp since I can just use my Xbox 360. I'm too lazy to look at the model number but it's one I bought at wal-mart for $45USD, upscales to 720p/1080i and outputs audio through HDMI and is region free by entering a secret menu. I've been able to get audio from the HDMI without a problem but audio would skip when my wife was watching VCDs so I connected analog (red/white) audio cables and I set the TV to receive the audio signal from the analog inputs and that worked fine.

I've tried with two different cables, the one that came with the box, and one that I've bought because the box did not advertise it had an HDMI cable [they probably added the cable after printing the manual].

I know what you mean about audio... there's a menu that allows to disable HDMI audio. However, both settings have the same result (one is expected, but I thought maybe it would switch something).

The one more thing I can try is disconnecting the SVideo audio in case there is some obscure setting that disables HDMI automatically (the previous model had this issue with optical audio, apparently).

Actually I probably don't know anything about the brand, but maybe you should look it up. Not all upscaling DVD players are equal. Then again some DVDs look worse when you see them clearer because it becomes apparent that they did a really shitty transfer, but others look a lot better.

As for bluray, I switched between the DVD and Bluray versions of Pirates and the Caribbian, and nevermind higher res, just the color depth alone is fucking infinitely better than anything DVD could ever offer. It's like Bluray is the rainbow and DVD is Quake 1.

Anyway, that aside, it's nice seeing the texture on peoples' clothes, skin, hair, even the grass and buildings or whatever you're watching looks a shitload better just because it looks like everything got a coating of high res textures. Unless you're watching something that uses depth of field blurring all over the place, but even then you can still appreciate the stuff in the foreground.

Last but still definitely important, I have yet to notice extensive JPEG-style artifacts on bluray movies. At first I didn't even notice them at all, but then I paused a fast scene on a movie that was just brought over from HDDVD (which has a lower video bitrate, about 2/3 what Bluray has) and then I saw a few issues.

All in all, Bluray really does make DVD look like VHS. You just have to be under 65 to appreciate the difference. So no, your grandma probably won't care, but everyone else can definitely appreciate the quality on a large TV.

Another thing, if you're hooking up Bluray on a composite 480i TV, then there's no difference between that and DVD, so don't bother. But if you plan on getting a HDTV in the future, at least buy your favorite movies on bluray. You won't be sorry.